A global meta-analysis of soil organic carbon in the Anthropocene

Damien Beillouin (), Marc Corbeels, Julien Demenois, David Berre, Annie Boyer, Abigail Fallot, Frédéric Feder and Rémi Cardinael
Additional contact information
Damien Beillouin: UPR HortSys
Marc Corbeels: Univ Montpellier, CIRAD
Julien Demenois: Univ Montpellier, CIRAD
David Berre: Univ Montpellier, CIRAD
Annie Boyer: CIRAD, DGDRS, DIST
Abigail Fallot: UMR SENS
Frédéric Feder: UPR Recyclage et Risque
Rémi Cardinael: Univ Montpellier, CIRAD

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Anthropogenic activities profoundly impact soil organic carbon (SOC), affecting its contribution to ecosystem services such as climate regulation. Here, we conducted a thorough review of the impacts of land-use change, land management, and climate change on SOC. Using second-order meta-analysis, we synthesized findings from 230 first-order meta-analyses comprising over 25,000 primary studies. We show that (i) land conversion for crop production leads to high SOC loss, that can be partially restored through land management practices, particularly by introducing trees and incorporating exogenous carbon in the form of biochar or organic amendments, (ii) land management practices that are implemented in forests generally result in depletion of SOC, and (iii) indirect effects of climate change, such as through wildfires, have a greater impact on SOC than direct climate change effects (e.g., from rising temperatures). The findings of our study provide strong evidence to assist decision-makers in safeguarding SOC stocks and promoting land management practices for SOC restoration. Furthermore, they serve as a crucial research roadmap, identifying areas that require attention to fill the knowledge gaps concerning the factors driving changes in SOC.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39338-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-39338-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39338-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().